


An Empire Of Ice

by TimeCloneMike



Category: Frostpunk (Video Game)
Genre: Dreadnought Righteous, Gen, Golden Path, Machine Learning, New London, New Manchester, Original Characters - Freeform, Sanctuary, Speculative Ecology, Speculative Sociology, Speculative Technology, Steampunk, The Legacy Arks, automatons, slapstick comedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-05-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:42:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23926321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TimeCloneMike/pseuds/TimeCloneMike
Summary: The Great Frost has come and gone. That was the easy part. Rebuilding human civilization? That's when things start to get difficult, even with automatons to do all the heavy lifting.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 29





	1. Daybreak

“We survived! We made it!”

“We did it! We survived the final blow! We will live!”

“It’s over, I can’t believe it, it’s over...”

Engineer Geoffrey Clarke stumbled through the streets of New London, jostled by the swarming bodies of what seemed like, and probably was, every able bodied citizen of the city. More than once he almost fell flat on his face after tripping over a loose board or a steam pipe raised up from the ground to get around rough terrain.

The ringing of bells from the Temple and Houses of Prayer combined with the shouts of joy and celebration to make a wall of sound almost as loud as the wind had been, which made it harder to concentrate. Several times a wrong turn resulted in a dead end and lost time from backtracking; old habits taking him down roads that didn’t exist after the emergency demolition and construction needed to provide housing and accommodations for Nansen’s refugees. More time was lost when a major thoroughfare turned out to be blocked by an Automaton, collapsed in the street, and surrounded by onlookers and gossips that made negotiation and navigation even more difficult and time consuming.

By the time that Clarke arrived at the Captain’s office, the sun had already been visible over the rim of the pit for forty five minutes. The door was slammed shut, Clarke stomped his boots on the grating located right inside the door for the purpose of catching loose snow, and the Engineer fell over himself one last time as he opened the door, saved only by his iron grip on the doorknob.

“Captain! It’s over! The storm is over, we...”

Clarke trailed off as he realized that the office was empty. The Captain was not sitting behind his desk, nor was he lying on the cot that occupied one corner next to the radiator, and the office itself was so spartan that the only possible place the Captain could be was under the desk, which seemed unlikely.

Nevertheless, Clarke walked around behind the desk to make doubly sure.

“I wouldn’t sit there-”

“AH!” Clarke jumped back and bumped into the wall at the sound of the Captain’s voice. The _de facto_ ruler of the city of New London, and possibly all that remained of the British Empire or even the human race, was standing in the threshold of his own office carrying some sort of package.

“Captain! The storm’s over we-”

“Yes, I did notice something to that effect when I was at the cookhouse.” The Captain walked up and sat behind his desk, dropping the package on the stacks of paperwork and forms that covered every inch of wood and unwrapping it. “As I was saying, I wouldn’t sit in this seat if I were you, not unless you were completely prepared to accept all the responsibilities that it entails.”

“Wouldn’t think of it Captain. I was just looking for you.”

“Behind my desk.”

“Yes.” An uncomfortable pause. “Well, it was very cold there, for a while.”

“That it was.” The Captain finished unwrapping what turned out to be a bundle of what, to the untrained eye, might be mistaken for Cornish Pasties. The Captain grabbed one in each hand and held one out to Clarke.

“Thank you, Captain.”

The Captain made no sound or movement acknowledging Clarke’s acceptance of the foodstuff, but once his hand was free began to shuffle through the paper on on his desk. Clarke gingerly bit into the pasty. The grease of the polar bear meat hit the taste buds like a cricket bat upside the face, but it was a welcome distraction from the flavor of the dough that had been coaxed together from lichen and algae.

“Aha, here it is.” The Captain held up a sheet of paper. “I am inclined, under the circumstances, to give everyone the chance to revel and celebrate until noon, but after that we need to get everyone working again. Hothouses need reseeding, the lower levels of the coal mines need to be re-excavated and most likely reinforced, and the factories will need to begin producing prosthetics for anyone who was too badly frostbitten during the storm. Of course, these are intermediate to long term projects. More immediately, we need the Beacon deployed again so that we can confirm that the weather is stable and that we don’t have another storm just like this one in two weeks time.”

“Grph orgbig.” Clarke struggled to chew and swallow the mouthful of bear pasty he had just bitten into. “I mean, God forbid.”

“After the Beacon is deployed, go ahead and marshal scout teams. The landscape may have completely changed which means we will have to start all over again. In particular, have one team try to find Nansen’s team, or whatever remains of them.” The Captain bit into his own pasty, chewed and swallowed. “One other thing. Emotions are running very high right now, which increases the likelihood of conflict. Even with everyone celebrating… perhaps especially because of everyone celebrating. Call in the Faith Keepers if it comes down to keeping the peace; as for personal conflicts, use your best judgment.”

“Me? Why me specifically?”

“Because I have had less than eight hours of sleep over the last three days.” The Captain stood up from his desk, handed the sheet of paper to Engineer Clarke, walked over to the cot, and laid down. “If it’s an emergency, wake me up. If you wake me up and it is not an emergency, however, I will have you banished from the city for life.”

Engineer Clarke paused in the middle of chewing a mouthful of bear meat, which somehow had become even less appetizing. Slowly, the Engineer walked around the desk and opened the office door.

“Engineer Clarke?”

“Yes, Captain?”

“I won’t actually banish you. That was the exhaustion talking. Just to clarify. But if you wake me up for a non-emergency conflict or decision, I _will_ be very cross with you.”

“Yes Captain. Understood Captain.”

Outside of the office, Clarke resumed chewing and managed to finish the pasty before stepping out onto the street again. People were still celebrating, although some sense of propriety must have crept back into their awareness once the euphoria of not dying had worn off. Only the Americans from the ill-fated Tesla Expedition were actually dancing and singing in the streets; proper British subjects allowed themselves smiles and a slight spring in their step as they went about bringing the city back to full operational status.

Smiles. People smiling.

Clarke could not remember the last time he had seen _anyone_ in the city smile.

As if the thought were a magical invocation, Clarke heard some sort of high pitched wailing, and his stomach turned to ice around the bear meat. Somebody must have not made it through the night; even with the overdrive on people had been freezing in their homes.

“Please, sir, wake him up! Please!”

A child’s voice.

‘ _Oh, bugger.’_

Clarke turned the corner, bracing himself for whatever macabre scene was waiting; a family frozen together perhaps, or a maybe the charred remains of somebody who tried to take matters into their own hands and lost control of the fire….

In front of him was a crowd of children, all watching the fallen automaton that was still blocking the street.

“He’s dead, he won’t wake up, he’s dead!”

“The Engineers are here, they will fix him! You will, won’t you sir?”

“You can’t just leave him here! He carried coal for us all through the storm!”

“Settle down, settle down!” Clarke saw a man pivot on a shiny, if scratched, prosthetic leg and start walking towards the children. The man’s grin and accent gave away that he was American. “The Flying Canadian here just got tuckered out, is all. Wouldn’t you be tired too, if you carried a ton of coal every day for a week straight?”

“But he’s not moving, and Automatons don’t stop moving ever, they always move around even when they stand still, even when they climb on buildings-”

“Ach, wake up ya daft metal bugger!”

“Whoa!” The American Engineer spun around again. “Not in front of the children!”

“Feck off! I cannae get the valves unstuck, ya wannae help or ya wannae play at nursemaid- AAAGH!”

The machine shuddered, throwing off all but one of the Engineers tending to it, and began to flail its legs until some inner mechanism registered that it had collapsed on the ground. Slowly the legs folded up and were dragged under the main chassis until the machine had righted itself, and began to extend, climbing into the sky as the children cheered and the last Engineer jumped off of the machine and onto the roof of a nearby house, clinging to the chimney pipe for dear life.

“...see?” The American Engineer grinned. “Nothing to worry about.”

“Excuse me!” The engineer on top of the house yelled. “I don’t mean to be a bother but would any of you happen to have a LADDER on your persons?!”

Clarke sighed and continued down the no-longer-obstructed street. The end of the world had come… and gone.

Nobody had said that everything would be perfect after that.

**1887**

**NEW LONDON**

**700 PEOPLE**

**-22 F**


	2. Homecoming

“Come on, come on… come on...”

Harry Gage, formerly cooper and barrel-maker, turned hunter, turned arctic scout, mumbled to himself as he trudged through the snow and wind. It was less for the sake of self-encouragement, more for the sake of making sure that his ears still worked; the biting pain of the cold had long since turned into the same numbness that was spreading through his arms and legs.

It was also a convenient way of checking that his lips and tongue still worked, which was also a concern.

One gloved hand came up and tried for the fifth time to wipe off the frost accumulating on the outside of his snow goggles, but the light in the distance was just as bleary as it had been. It was appreciably brighter than it had been when a few folks on the outskirts of New Manchester, made insomniac by worry and fear, had noticed the new star in the night sky. So presumably he was getting closer-

A deep, creaking groan interrupted Gage’s train of thought, and his legs locked up suddenly before breaking into a sprint… or the closest thing he could manage to a sprint wearing improvised snowshoes and numbed legs. Either he had walked over an ice bridge that couldn’t support his weight, or a very hungry polar bear or seal was right behind him, and there was no time to find out which scenario was the correct one.

Boots and gloves scrabbled against a particularly high drift, powder falling on Gage’s face, blocking his vision, smothering his breath even through the scarf covering his mouth. Every foot and handhold crumbled under his grip, and he was forced to turn to find a way around instead of going up and over.

Even with his peripheral vision blocked by the snow goggles, and the wind and snow aiding the creature’s natural camouflage, Gage could see the bear coming towards him. Hands shaking with panic as much as cold reached for the knife at his belt, not that it would do much good against ten feet and half a ton of hungry carnivore-

The bear made another growling sound as it closed the distance, but skidded to a stop as the endless winter night turned to day. Gage was nearly deafened by the bellowing noise that followed.

“ _HOSTILE ARCTIC FAUNA DETECTED. DEPLOYING COUNTERMEASURES.”_

The polar bear howled back, and suddenly Gage was blind, the world had turned red, the bear must have clawed at him there was blood on his goggles and he couldn’t feel anything he couldn’t even tell where he had been hit and he was the last survivor and there was nobody left to find help for New M-

“ _COUNTERMEASURES SUCCESSFUL. RESUMING SCOUTING OPERATIONS.”_ The deafening simulacra of a voice as heard coming through a furnace vent paused, and Gage could hear a whistling sound and the grinding of machinery not unlike that produced by the generator in New Manchester. _“TARGET INTERCEPT COMPLETED. WARNING. CRITICAL MEDICAL EMERGENCY DETECTED. ACTIVATING MEDICAL PROCEDURES. WARNING._ _AVAILABLE_ _FACILITIES INADEQUATE FOR SUCCESSFUL TREATMENT. ABORTING MEDICAL PROCEDURES. ACTIVATING AMBULANCE PROTOCOL.”_

The booming voice stopped long enough for Gage to take his hands off of his ears and reach for his blood covered goggles. Meager as their protection had been against the cold, they had still blocked the wind and his eyes stung fiercely at the lack of protection, but he was able to see again.

Not ten feet in front of him was the remains of the polar bear that attempted to make a meal of him, impaled by an enormous steel pillar. With another whistling noise and a series of clacking and clicking noises, the pillar rose up into the sky, and Gage followed it, tilting his head back and turning to see….

“What in God’s name?!”

A house on legs; that was Gage’s first impression, before the mechanical details pushed themselves to the front of his attention. Steam valves and cog wheels, rivets and pistons and pulleys with braided steel cables. The actinic glare of shielded arc lamps, spinning in place or pivoting on articulated hinges, except for one fixed in place beneath a shiny, if scratched, brass plate.

_The Yellow Dubliner._

Hissing and screeching as metal rubbed against metal, the legs telescoped and folded; first the back end, then the front, until the machine was all but crouched in front of Gage. Panels opened up, cable spools whirring. There was a grinding, crackling sound-

“ _PLEASE REMAIN CALM. YOU ARE BEING TRANSPORTED TO THE INFIRMARY.”_

One of the massive forelegs split into multiple limbs, surrounding Gage in a grip that would have surprised him with its gentleness and precision, had he not been utterly terrified at the prospect of being picked up by a giant machine and stuffed inside it.

“Oh God what the hell is happening?!”

The hatch slowly began to close and Harry tried to make a lunge for the opening, but found to his shock that his legs barely moved him a foot in the correct direction.

“ _PATIENT SECURE. GAIT GOVERNOR DISENGAGED. MAXIMUM TOP SPEED AVAILABLE. ESTIMATED TIME OF ARRIVAL AT PROJECT LEGACY INFIRMARY IS….”_

Harry Gage did not hear the automaton’s calculations for travel time. The cold, the shock of the polar bear attack, the even greater shock of the machine’s timely intervention, the terror of being picked up and shoved inside a dimly lit box… it all added up to a very stiff bill, and his battered and abused body had decided it was time to collect.

It wasn’t until he woke up again that Gage realized he had lost consciousness. Lights stabbed at his eyes, and his limbs would not respond when he tried to reach up to cover them.

“I see now why you called it the worst case of frostbite you’ve ever seen. I don’t think I’ve seen worse myself.”

Light, dark, light dark… a dizzying feeling. He had to be on a wheeled cart or a gurney. Were they moving him? Where?

“Uough...” Gage’s attempt at asking a question ended in failure before he could start.

“Mother of God, he’s waking up!”

“Damn it to hell! Get the ether, he’s not going to thank us if we leave him awake for what comes next!”

“Help...”

“We’re trying, we’re trying! I said get the ether!”

“I’m getting it! I’m getting it!”

“It’s okay, we’re all doctors, you’re in good hands, what’s your name, can you tell me your name?”

“N… New...”

“Newton, Newson?”

Gage coughed and groaned as the muscle movement set off pain throughout his chest.

“New Man...”

“Newman, well Newman, we’ll do our damnedest to save that arm of yours-”

“ _New Manchester,”_ Gage forced out, his vision going dark at the edges with the effort it took.

“...New… New Manchester… wait, is that a _city?!_ ”

“Help… them…”

The world went dark, until Gage was pulled back into the light by a high pitched whirring. Brilliant lights almost blinded him, with distorted shadows moving back and forth in front of them.

“What… who are you… am I…”

“ _WARNING. ADDITIONAL ANESTHE_ _TIC_ _REQUIRED.”_

Gage’s ears were filled with a whistling hiss like steam escaping a heat pipe, and the world started to go gray again. Until he saw what had made the original whirring noise; a circular saw, lights flashing off the blades.

“ _RESUMING PRECISION DEBRIDEMENT.”_

Gage screamed, rolled off the side of the bed, waving his arms to try to fend off the metal spider descending on him. Except there was no spider, no circular saw, no spotlights blinding him; just the dim pilot of the gaslight on the other side of a bedroom.

One hand came up, then the other. Both were flesh and blood, or as the doctors had put it, original hardware, vintage, family heirlooms, and other euphemisms thrown about by those who were well versed in the necessity of amputation but also the versatility of prosthetics. Lines of scars indicated where some skin had been removed in order to preserve the rest of the arm, not to mention pinpoint burns and criss-crossed markings that indicated other procedures Gage could not even remember the names of, let alone understand the medical and scientific principles behind.

There were also other, less regular burns, but those were ordinary accidents in the cookhouse that had nothing to do with saving Gage’s arm.

“Mr. Gage? Are you alright? I thought I heard shouting.”

A voice outside the door.

“Ah. Yes. One moment.” Gage managed to pull himself to his feet, then pulled on enough clothing of the appropriate type to appear decent in mixed company, before finally opening the bedroom door. “Hello, is there something the matter?”

“I was about to ask you precisely that, in fact.” Concerned eyes peered at Gage through multiple, overlapping lenses that almost completely occluded a hairless face of fine features. “I was just coming to wake you up when I heard some frightful noises.”

“Ah. I am afraid that was me. I managed to somehow roll out of my bed in my sleep, which made for a rather confusing awakening. Sorry to alarm you, Miss Porter.”

“...I see.” The engineer’s doubt was written all over what Gage could see of her face, but she did not press the issue. “Anyway. Since you are already awake, the Captain would like to see you.”

“I suppose that’s a role reversal.”

“I suppose. I’ll wait while you get prepared to go outside.”

“Right, thank you very much.”

Gage shut the door and began looking around the bedroom. Each article of clothing and piece of equipment he recovered set off a miniature journey down memory lane; seeing it the first time he had expected a quick introduction to those he would be rooming with, but the room was intended to be single-occupancy from the moment the house schematics had been drawn out in the workshops. Lighting from coal gas, integrated writing desk, _and_ personal water closet, but the ultimate luxury it provided was privacy.

Once properly attired for the weather outside (a balmy negative thirty degrees Centigrade, according to the thermometer relay inset by the desk) Gage opened the door once again to find Engineer Porter still waiting. Together they marched downstairs, grabbed the Lamps from their charging stations in the entrance hallway, and stepped out into the city.

Engineers swarmed over the Generator catwalk, shouting readings and measurements, and once the duo had made a suitable circuit around the tower it was possible to see other engineers swarming around the glowing glass palaces of the Seedling Arks.

“Did everything make it through the Storm?”

“Yes. Some glass cracked from the thermal imbalance but the temperature difference was maintained.” Porter half turned and pointed behind her, at the roofs of the workshops peaking between the houses. “Captain has the design team working on a glass works as we speak.”

“That seems like the type of facility that would have been invaluable from the outset of your work.” Gage coughed. “Providing, of course, that you didn’t have a city on your doorstep in dire need.”

“Actually, outlasting the Great Storm was the last major mandate provided to us by the Project Legacy Charter. From here on out, we will be forging our own paths, by necessity… here we are,” Engineer Porter added needlessly as they reached the Captain’s residence. What little slush had accumulated on the pair’s boots was stomped and scraped off, and a quick journey upstairs led to a pair of double doors, already opened with Engineers running in and out with checklists and boxes.

“There’s still some uncut lumber by Ark Number Three, Captain. We might set up a sawmill there if we need to melt new tunnels for the wall drill, to tide us over.”

“Captain, we just got word from the Factory team, all instruments check out but they have to raise the heat slowly or risk rupturing the hydraulic accumulators. It won’t be operational until after nineteen hundred hours.”

“Scout Unit Number Four is standing by for dispatch of orders, Captain.”

The overlapping conversations stopped instantly as the Captain raised a gloved hand. Two mismatched eyes stared at Gage, one distorted by the monocle lens over it.

“Mr. Gage. Beacon lookouts have spotted a smoke or steam plume in the direction of New Manchester. It would appear that at least some of them made it through the storm.”

Gage let out his breath, which was the first moment he realized he had been holding it.

“Thank you for telling me, sir. That’s wonderful news.”

“Scout Unit Number Four is standing by at the Beacon. With the initial crisis past, we are shifting into long term endurance operations, but we can still spare the manpower to get you back home again.”

“Thank you sir. And thank you again, sir, for taking the chance of helping my people-”

There was a thud as the Captain dropped the clipboard in his hand on the table.

“Chance? Taking chances?” The Captain glared at Gage, lips tight with barely restrained anger. _“Is that what you think of me?”_

“I-” Gage stuttered, trying to backtrack. “I meant no offense sir, I merely-”

“I did not leave _anything_ to chance.” A desk drawer was pulled open, and a handful of papers extracted. “I checked the numbers and I rechecked them, and then I checked them _again_. Then, and only then, did I make the decision to help. I am a scientist, I do not leave things to _chance_ , Mr. Gage. How _dare_ you imply that I would risk humanity’s legacy by leaving it to _chance_.”

The papers were thrown onto the desk, several of them skidding over the side with the force of impact and flopping noisily to the floor. For a few seconds, the whisper of paper against paper was the only noise in the office.

“...Engineer Porter. Escort Mr. Gage to the Beacon, before he asks me to provide New Manchester with anything else. Rocking chairs, maybe.”

“Sir.” Engineer Porter saluted, grabbed Gage’s arm, and pulled the dazed man out of the office and down the stairs.

Outside, the duo waited until an automaton had finished walking past them, a bundle of wooden timbers peeking out of the cargo hold. It wasn’t until Porter had turned a corner that she spoke again.

“You know that was all an act, right?”

“Hmm? Terribly sorry, I was in a bit of a… fog, there.”

“An act. The Captain wasn’t really angry with you at all. Well, he was irritated that you kept bursting into his office to try and convince him to do what he had already decided to do. But that was all. The only reason he raised his voice...” Porter looked around for other pedestrians or possible eavesdroppers. “Those engineers in his office, they were the ones who were against helping New Manchester originally. The Captain had them report to him about various projects in progress just so they could be there when he gave you a dressing down.”

“Ah. I think I see. It was about saving face. And showing those calculations probably made those doubting engineers reconsider their actions. I’m not a man of science myself but I can see how scientists would be swayed by maths.”

There was a quickly muffled giggle from Engineer Porter, but Gage still noticed it.

“Wait… did he really risk the mission to help my city?”

“Mr. Gage.” It was very difficult to tell but Gage thought that Engineer Porter might have been smiling behind her face mask and goggles. “The people here are some of the brightest minds to be found in the British Empire. And the Captain is the Captain for a reason. He doesn’t NEED to write out the math longhand like that. He came up with a plan in seven minutes _in his head._ Leveraging all of the assets of this city and the available resources in the crater to find a solution that saved everyone and everything. He wrote all of those papers out over the last week specifically as a visual aid to this meeting, to drive home the point to the engineers that doubted his commitment, because the Captain is as vindictive and petty as he is intelligent.”

“...good heavens.”

“Also, to answer your actual question, no. He did not risk the mission.” Porter turned to face Gage. “But he would have, if that’s what it took. He absolutely would have.”

The remainder of the walk to the Beacon was silent except for the occasional crunch of snow or slush beneath boots.

“Scout Unit, Assemble!”

Men and women in heavy arctic gear lined up as the pair turned the last corner, but Scouts alone were not standing by. Other engineers were gathered around one of the scout sleds, and towering above them all was an idle automaton. Gage marveled at how quickly he had gotten used to the sight of the giant machines stalking through the city, until a detail grabbed his eye: An illuminated brass plaque.

_The Yellow Dubliner._

“Mr. Gage!” One of the engineers stepped away from sled, prompting others to do the same. “In honor of your time here in our fair city, we, the engineering staff of Project Legacy, would like to provide you with a token of our esteem!”

The engineers finished clearing away from the scout sled, to reveal a box propped open to display its contents. Inside that box, resting on sawdust and wood chips to protect it from shocks and impact, was something shining and mechanical….

A prosthetic arm.

“When you first came to the city, there were concerns that the frostbite on your arm was so severe that only amputation would save your life. In anticipation of that contingency, we had this manufactured during factory downtime. Happily, it can now serve a different purpose. When you get back home, let everyone in New Manchester know that Project Legacy will always be there to lend a hand!”

A mixture of applause and rude comments at the quality of the pun broke out immediately. Harry Gage, former cooper and barrel-maker, turned hunter, turned arctic scout, turned messenger, simply stared at the shining silver gift. It was impossible to see the tears of gratitude from the man’s eyes behind his snow goggles, but Project Legacy consisted of the finest minds of the British Empire.

Presumably _some_ of them deduced what was happening.

**1887**

**PROJECT LEGACY SITE**

**ARK VIABILITY: 100%**

**45 PEOPLE**

**-30 C**


End file.
